The Konami Code Origin Revealed By Katsuhisa Hashimoto

Katsuhisa Hashimoto, one of the creators of the classic Nintendo Entertainment System port of the arcade game Gradius spoke about the origin of the famed Konami code in a 2003 interview that GlitterBerri translated and Joystiq was kind enough to share.

“I had one guy under me, and he played through the coin-op version,” Hashimoto said. “That one’s really tough. I hadn’t played that much and obviously couldn’t beat it myself, so I put in the Konami Code.

“Because I was the one who was going to be using it,” Hashimoto said, “I made sure it was easy to remember. The game took around half a year to develop, and, at the time, putting the code together was like an entertaining puzzle. ‘How on earth am I going to be able to fit these passwords into the program?’ I’d ask myself.”

Let’s be honest here. Using the code on Gradius in NOT cheating. That game was tough. Check out this video by SHMUPGurus over on YouTube. This is the first of two videos that was made, a run through the NES Gradius without dying once.

Searching through the alleys for useful knowledge in the city of Nostalgia. Huge cinema fanatic and sometimes carrier of the flame for the weirding ways of 80s gaming, toys, and television. When his wife lets him he is quite happy sitting in the corner eating buckets of beef jerky.